Nicola (Nicholas) Papengouth

b. 15 June, 1858, in Odessa, Ukraine, Nicola Papengouth was the son of Dutch nobleman Oswald (Christopher) Papengouth, an officer of the Tsarist Russian navy, who became a Baptist missionary in Italy. His father was converted after reading a tract, and baptized by the leading Evangelical aristocrat, Baptist Wriothesley Noel. His mother was British born, and his father would later marry another British woman (Hannah Puget, the daughter of John Hey Puget and Isabella nee Hawkins). In 1865, the family was living at 39 Montague Place, London, near Russell Square. Nicola was baptised in Paris in the Seine, where his father was on mission. He studied painting and then passed to classical and theological studies in Switzerland., and seems to have spent some time in 1879 as a student at Spurgeon's Pastor's College.

After graduating in 1879, Nicola followed his father to Naples where he and his brother Alexander (later a missionary in Haiti) helped with the work of evangelizing, and in building up the Baptist church in piazza S. Francesco, the Chiesa Apostolic Cristiana.

In 1883, Papengouth arrived in Milan, as a missionary of the American Baptist Mission, working with the church on via del Pesce. He was a meticulous preacher, and could preach freely in French, English and German, as well as Italian. With Nicola Nardi-Greco, Gaetano Fasulo and Enrico Paschetto, Papengrouth was one of the founders of the Baptist journal Il Testimonio.

Under him, the little Baptist community 'grew among a thousand difficulties'. In 1889 the Baptist church in Milan had 33 members and a lively Sunday School. Papengouth had the idea that the church could begin evangelizing together with other evangelical churches then present in Milan (Waldensian, Methodist and Free Church). Thus a “Milanese Evangelical Christian Circle” was founded and a “Society for Mutual Assistance and Charity of Evangelical Christians in Milan”. They began holding services together.

In 1903, Papengrouth moved to the Baptist cause in Naples.

In November 1906, Papengouth died after being gripped by a sudden fever. He was remembered as a refined, open, generous man, who was a little eccentric, in part because of his repeated sensitive health.

Sources:

Evangelical Baptist Church of Milan Pinamonte, http://www.chiesabattistadimilano.it/en/about-us/the-history-of-our-church-in-milan, accessed 7.8.2019

Fiorani, T., L’eretico di Anacapri. Storia e leggenda del conte di Papengouth, Capri: La Conchiglia, 2011.

Maselli, D., Storia dei battisti italiani (1873-1923), Torino: Claudiana, 2003.

Taylor, G.B., Southern Baptists in sunny Italy, New York: W. Neale, 1929.

Taylor, G.B., 'In memoriam', Il Testimonio 11 (Nov 1906).